Wang Hao beats Ponomariov in Kings’ Tournament’s final round

In the last round of the Kings’ Tournament in Bucharest Wang Hao defeated Ruslan Ponomariov in a Semi-Tarrasch to finish on 4.5/8. The Chinese GM ended only half a point behind tournament winner Fabiano Caruana, who drew his last-round game with Teimour Radjabov quickly.

Fabiano Caruana became the winner of Kings’ Tournament 2013. After a quick draw in the last round with the black pieces against Radjabov, the Italian GM scored 5 points out of 8 and secured the first place.

Wang Hao-Ponomariov was a long game, where Black equalized after the opening, but then started to face some problems which the Ukrainian GM failed to solve. In the resulting endgame with rooks and opposite-coloured bishops Wang Hao won a pawn and then converted his material advantage to achieve his second win in a row in Bucharest.

Caruana tweeted:

Not a great finish, but still managed to win the Kings' Tournament. Traveling to Rodos tomorrow for the ECC. Hoping my team SOCAR will win!

Kommentare

Their last game where Carlsen easily beat Anand, I believe that it was a phsicological trick by Anand so Carlsen will believe that he can easily beat him and do not fully feel the need to prepare too much for the WCC.

I believe that Carlsen has the handicap of never playing a match against one of the top eight players in the world. Anand on the other hand has great experience in match play and could be the winning key to retain the World Championship Title.

Carlsen will win easily, because he is clearly the strongest player. Simple as that, the rest are useless speculation.

Currently Caruana is the strongest player not qualified for the 2014 Candidates.

I believe that Carlsen has the handicap of never playing a match against one of the top eight players in the world. Anand on the other hand has great experience in match play and could be the winning key to retain the World Championship Title.

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